News & Events

Any new event is in itself a challenge to the organisers; the challenge here though was to prepare an event that seriously challenged the participants without it being so tough that people had to start dropping out. We're pleased to say that everyone who started a stage finished it - and boy, were they tired - but elated at the achievement.

The women's race was dominated from start to finish by Deborah Webb, an ex-Pat Brit who recently moved to Cyprus. She obviously had some home town advantage, but she is genuinely a classy runner. Just to put her under pressure, Mike bet Steven Seaton, the Runner's World editor, at the end of stage 2 that Deborah would finish 3rd overall and announced the bet to the assembled field at the yellow jersey presentation at the start of stage 3 - the trail half marathon. Indeed, she finished 3rd on the day and moved up to 3rd overall, but the final day's 10km proved a bit quick for her and the greater leg speed of some of the men meant she dropped back to 4th overall at the finish. Deborah's performance was inspiring.

In the men's race the over-all lead was always in danger of changing hands. Scott Kennedy won the first stage, the 6km time trial, but struggled on stage 2, the 11km hill race, and relinquished the lead to Stephen Tompkin who won the stage very impressively.

On stage 3, the tough Trail Half Marathon it looked like Scott had lost his chance to close the gap before the last stage as he took a tumble towards the end on the long down hill section. This gave Tony Vout chance to slip past into 2nd position after 3 stages, with Scott dropping to 3rd male overall - 4th in the race.

Stage 4, the Paphos 10km saw the introduction of a few local runners who ensured that it wouldn't be a tactical race. Cypriot runner Christos Pavlis shot into an early lead, but was caught by both Steve and Scott around 5km, at which point Scott started to put the pressure on Steve. From 6km a gap started to appear and Scott stretched away from Steve to open a 67 sec. advantage at the finish. Alas, it wasn't enough to close the gap on either Stephen or Tony Vout, who finished the 10km in fourth, but was good enough to move him ahead of Deborah Webb to go 3rd at the end of the challenge.

The Challenge was an event organised jointly between ARENA DMC & Sports Division who are the Appointed Ground Handling Operator in Cyprus for the British Olympic Associations training base at the Coral Beach Hotel near Paphos - a superb location, and the base for the event & 2:09 Events.
The event would of course have not been possible without the Major Sponsorships of the Cyprus Tourism Organisation and Cyprus Airways who were also the official carriers of the event, the Sponsorships and continuous support to sports tourism of the Leptos Group and the Coral Beach Hotel & Resort, the sponsorship and most of all assurance inspired to all participants by our Medical Providers, Evangelismos Hospital and certainly the valuable contribution of 4x4 car hires by Budget Rent-a-car.
Local authorities like the police, forestry & archaeological departments, as well as the Rescue & Co-ordination Centre being on call for Air-vac emergencies, all of whom were taking a leap into the unknown with this new type of event for Cyprus had their share of contribution in making the event a success, to the extend that the police motorbike outriders made the final 10km road race through Paphos town seem like the New York Marathon...

Top Results
Men

1. Stephen Tompkin - cumulative time: 3hrs 25mins 50 sec
2. Tony Vout: 3hrs 29mins 36 sec
3. Scott Kennedy: 3hrs 30mins 55 sec

Women

1. Deborah Webb: 3hrs 32min 37sec
2. Anita Cavelle: 3hrs 55min 34sec
3. Rebecca Dicker: 4hrs 25mins 39sec

Click here to download a full breakdown of each leg.

See you all in 2006
The ARENA Team